THE CASE OF THE CAPTURED CHILD IN AMERICA'S CLASSROOM (Part II)

A national test given to Christian students, attending, public schools, showed 90% scored in a range that indicates their views are firmly grounded in basic tenets of secularism.

In the February 19, 2023, blog/podcast, I shared the term “captured” student. Not only are today’s students captivated (supposedly) in their classes but they are also captured. Teachers who exploit their secular progressive views in the classroom assume all students share their perspective. Students, who are forced to absorb propaganda from one ideological sway, do not have the means nor the courage to get up and leave the classroom in the midst of a lecture. They are truly a captured audience.

This is part two in a series The Captured Child. After posting my last blog on FaceBook, it amazes me how people react when God is mentioned. If you haven’t guessed, it’s hateful with personal attacks. After multiple assertions that I was incapable of intelligent discourse, quitting seemed a viable option. But I won’t! I do not believe many took time to read the article as they asserted my focus was worshipping God in the public schools. That is NOT my intended outcome. My purpose is to ensure teachers and administrators level the playing field for Christian and other faith-based students. No child, no matter the ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, should feel uncomfortable in any classroom in America. It is more than just the law, it is being human.

WHY THE NEED TO ESCAPE FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

In 2015, a national test given to Christian students showed that 90 percent of students from Christian homes attending public schools scored in a range that indicates their views are firmly grounded in basic tenets of secularism.

The Peers Test continues:  Year-by-year, since the mid 80’s, youth from Christian homes are moving away from the worldview of Biblical scholars in favor of the worldview expressed by Humanists and New Agers.

The secular progressives would look at the Peers Test as a victory. In my opinion, this victory is celebrated widely in the public schools today. So I ask some hypothetical questions:

• What if there was a national test which showed 90% of LBGTQ+ students were forced to embrace tenets of the straight lifestyle because their life choices were demeaned when attending public schools?

• What if it could be shown that 90% of students of color embraced the dogma of racism after attending public schools?

• How would atheists feel if 90% of their children accepted the Bible as the word of God after attending the public schools?

There would be outrage and litigation all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and rightfully so! And yet the Christian student and parent are looked upon as if they are subversive characters in a sinister plot. Just a few days ago, in Newsweek, the FBI has come under scrutiny after a leaked document showed the bureau warning that "radical traditionalist" Catholics pose as an extremist threat.

According to the Pew Research Center, Christianity is the world’s most persecuted religion across all nations. Oh, but not here you retort! Of course not. No one is burning Christians at the stake in America. Yet many Christian and faith-based children, after attending public schools, are exchanging their reliance in God to embracing a world void of God. Ideologically forced learning instead of the act of burning! No residue of ashes but in place, empty shells of humans navigating a dark world without a moral compass.

In complete transparency, I am not religious. Religiosity does not always involve grace or unconditional love. I best describe myself in a relationship with Jesus Christ.  For several years I was the faculty sponsor of the (public) high school’s prayer club. So it was no surprise when students of faith came to me when they felt uncomfortable, captured, in their classrooms.  One of my students complained that in the class World Religion (yes it is taught in many public high schools), Christianity was taught through the eyes of the blood-bathed crusades while Islam was presented as a religion of peace. Another student tried to balance the day’s lecture in science arguing perhaps the Big Bang Theory was just that, a theory. She tried to interject the “six day” plan and was told it was not a part of the curricula. And of course, the usual gathering of students in my office, completely frustrated, after sitting through a month’s study of life beginning at birth. These are just a few examples of faith-based students captured in the public school classroom. Why didn’t I take up their plight? I didn’t think it was my place, which is a euphemism for *gallus gallus domesticus.

*chicken

A few of my Christian brothers and sisters might take an audible breath here, roll their eyes and wonder why I did not uphold my Christian principles while teaching in the public schools all those decades. Loving my students, all of them, put action to the sometimes passive word “love”. My final act, which contributed to my firing, was trying to help one of my high school seniors buy a car so he could get to school and graduate. Six years later, I would not change anything about those final weeks of teaching in 2017. Being a Christian is not shaking the finger of judgement at anyone but instead opening the hand of unconditional love to all.

So by now, you are waving your hand frantically because you have the answer. Right? These Christian kids need to get out of the public schools if they are not willing to adapt their belief system to world views. Send them to private and parochial schools. Or better yet, home school them. And that is exactly what is transpiring. What is the answer? Tune in for the next installment of The Captured Child In American Education: Private, parochial and home schools

Order your copy today.  Winner of the 2020 Topshelf and 2022 Mainstream Media Non-fiction Book Award. AMAZON REVIEW: You will laugh and you will cry as you find yourself a mouse in the room in the most memorable experiences of 46 years of teaching. Check it out!

I would be happy to address your school, district, school board or Teachers’ College. RESCUE THE TEACHER, SAVE THE CHILD! is equipped with thoughtful questions at the end of most chapters designed for students, parents, teachers and administrators. Let’s encourage a national conversation on education for all of our children. You can reach me at rescuetheteacher@yahoo.com.